What happened? I used to be intelligent!

I am used to feeling smart. (I know its sad, but) I'm used to thinking that I'm the intelligent one in the room. It's a mentality that I intentionally carefully cultivated after years of being cripplingly self conscious. Once I branched out on my own, with a new baby, I went back to school and discovered that "Hey, I'm not so useless after all!". I got really good grades and caught on to things quickly and found that I actually really enjoy learning. Then as I ventured out into the work force, I climbed ladders quickly and always did the best in my position. Evidently, during this transitional phase in my life, I really let it get to my head.

Since moving to the ranch, I've discovered that I. know. Nothing.

I severely underestimated the amount of all-around knowledge running a ranch requires. I figured, like I said in a previous blog post, don't you just throw some food at cows and they grow into tasty burgers or something? It is so much more intensive than what I had previously assumed.

Examples of things I've given up trying to wrap my oh-so-superior brain around:

•  The geneology of cow dogs,
• Why no body wants to buy this breed of cow, but we're going to do it and somehow it will make us money? 
• The different avenues of income a ranch as complex as ours has,
• Government range leases,
• The subtle nuances of cattle body language (actually, I'm still working on this one)
• How dropping six figures on various ranch related necessities is perfectly normal?!
• How the seemingly unrelated happenings overseas effect hay prices in our little blip on the map
• Why sheep like to die?!
• The Cattlemens Association and all its confusing programs,
• Why the price of cows can change drastically from one day to another.

I'm sure there are much more, but apparently I have pushed them from my brain in an attempt to maintain some shred of the belief that I am still smart.

It's been a humbling experience. I've learned there are different kinds of smart. Like there is "street smart" and "book smart". I am definately not "ranch smart".